Who you are, what you were and what will happen
by 221Beatsofmyheart
Summary: Harry Potter/The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas crossover AU. Remus Lupin uses a different identity to work undercover at a German concentration camp and feed back to the ministry. While there he meets a boy beyond the fence that he knows very well if only he knew how that could be.
1. Chapter 1

Remus Lupin set his suitcase down. He took several semi-effort steps back. The transport that had brought him to this place scrunching gravel as it rolled away over the bumps of sullen grass. The grinding engine faded into the distance. He was alone to observe the camp several fences away from the one which he was stood in front of.

This was not a place he felt it was safe for him to take part in this weight of a task he had been trusted with. At the grand age of 25 he was not quite sure that he had quite removed the half-breed look about him. It unfortunately stuck out like a sore thumb. Nazi Germany had quite the stereotypes to be getting on with, though. He was not disabled in any way. At least, not in their eyes and the only crime he committed on a day-to-day basis was reading an inhuman amount of books. Fittingly, as he was not quite fully-human as they would see him. He was hoping they would look past his obvious weakened mannerisms and write him off as reasonable build. Introverted, just about blonde enough...

He could not quite get the view of the camp as he wanted to. Nor did he think it needed the added humiliation of his prying eye. He had not been properly briefed by the ministry what type of role to take. Much as he saw it; it seemed to involve improvisation. Not a skill he was particularly gifted with,. Oh but he could conceal secrets as soon as he gained a secret best wisely kept. That, after all, was what saw him through schooling.

He took the opportunity for a breather to construct a simple but achievable story. Rolling the pads of flesh directly underneath his thumbs palm side-up together he breathed coldly against his hands as he vouched for the attention of a soldier not too far off. He waited solemnly but he supposed for a Nazi, it was rather pleasant. His smile paled as he thought of the horrors that lay beyond the gates.

Remus was not used to unpacking quite so quickly. He'd gotten in quite alright, but he felt that he was just asking for an interrogation all gunged up with a blocked nose and wary hands. He was a target if he'd ever seen one. His left had rested on the top of his thigh quite absently as he had identified himself and he was now quite alone. Asking for it, but alone. He unturned his socks from the balls he had neatly folded them in. The walls were barren and the bed quite wooden. He had a nice little lamp and he felt ashamed for the adjective to even cross his mind.

For all he knew it could have belonged to a man or woman packed into the camp not very far from him. It seemed like they would recycle in that way. He imagined her name to be Margerie. Perhaps a widow, a squib but a very happy one. She got by. He imagined that she might have been the sort that strutted through Diagon Alley without a care, or an inch of magic in the world. Margerie, he thought, had not been hurting anyone. He imagined that she might have children. Older, he did not know if he hoped for or not. Yes, they would be fighting the good war away from dismal end, but loneliness was often a fate worse. He knew that himself.

He took to the corridor in cautious, guided steps. The landing was dark and yellowing concrete flushed the construction but still he did not have a window to view what was beyond. It was silent, but with his sort of hearing it was not difficult for him to listen further and to what was really there. Steps and turns and reloads of rifles jolted by a soldier outside. Given a gun but until used it was a play-thing that makes noises. Remus knew that he would be cleverer to swap his cardigan for a uniform. One he certainly would wash himself for the rest of his life for fitting his skin.

He stepped carefully down the stairs. The world around him began to feel like it was activated and there was more movement to observe mainly from the kitchens. Car doors being shut, and soft simmering that made his ears bleed because he could not hear beyond it like a curtain had been drawn and he did not know where to find it.

He sat on a bench in the hallway, his legs lightly open as if they were somehow defying the order of the place. He liked order in his life as any other man. Maybe more than most he was particularly attuned to uptight genes but for the first time he wanted them to dishevel. His personality was no sin but it made him feel ill to witness so much of it in the same radius when there were people's modesty being torn apart down the slopes of hill behind him.  
He made his structure assurative as a cook walked past into the door beside him. He wondered if it was painfully obvious; his intentions. To those designed to be less looking for it as the men in power being able to sense it, smelled it on him. It was possible. For someone who had spent his lifehood being quiet and vivid in mind so he didn't look quite so vacant he felt loud.

Maybe it was because he had nothing to read. But he had abandoned fiction before entering and it was clear he would not visit an alternate universe for quite some time however long he would bound himself to the walls. He itched his nose. He had to admit that had been a bit of a worry before arrival. Whether it was too big. Rather, whether that was on the list of many things that they ticked off as inferior. Little did they know it was not quite credible as they would have themselves think. Severus Snape has quite the nose and was considered quite highly. At least, by his own standards and, he supposed, no one would dare tell him even Remus although he had acquired the infinity of entertaining the thought. He stood, trying to be stoic as what he assumed to be the commanding officer judging by patch and badges approached.

Moustached and grim he spoke as if every vowel were an order. "Journal-i-s-t?"he barked, the last three letters rising like he was addressing his men.  
"Yes." Remus stated. "Propaganda as assigned byGoebbels himself. I have the documents here with me."  
"And your duty here?  
"Mainly keeping a keen eye on your men and their high performance."  
The officer watched Remus steadily, his face screwing like a straining closed fist. "No negative comments may leave this establishment or you'll find a hand-held on your back on your way out and you won't make it out with your crummy little dirt on us. We don't have time to step carefully around the fuhrer and his crafted image. He has been quite adament with us from the beginning that we do what we do to get the jobs done and for a smooth execution."  
Remus felt ill but did not let it show. It was the standard for him to never look as if he was not up to speed with full health and like he needs a good two-week rest because he always needed one. "I understand the conditions. I am only here with an upholding patriarchal objective to Hitler, and to our land and ever-growing empire."

The officer gave a slight nod. His lip curdled and leaned his head to the side gravely. "Uniform." he ordered with a grumble. "Days last between 6 and 12. You are not permitted to go off on your own accord after this allotted time. If it's inside the camp you want I will all be glad to accompany you myself. No one but me, you understand?"

Remus kept eye contact, looking old and tired and harmless. "I do. Where might I find this uniform?"  
Remus had retreated to his room after that. It was quite enough ordeal for one day and he preferred to keep out of sight and out of mind. He had not eaten as much as for his sake as being aware that the more that was left over, the more there would be to feed the children that worked manual labour on the house. He had learned to subdue his appetite and he had some chocolate knocking around for desperate measures if he so needed it.

The bed was not comfortable but the sounds and the knowledge of where he stayed were less so. He very much desired a nice warm fire right now. Not only for the warmth, but for the straight, clean-cut uniform to be set light to that hanged on a metal hanger a metre away.  
He wished it was not a requirement but accepted that it was nothing more than clothes to clothe the body. They did not know the mind which it would be disguising. Using the basin he had rediscovered the noticability and the skin-deep appearance of the scar that bridged his appearance. Maybe it would be received as a battle wound. It could be passed off as it. They weren't to know, and he was going to engage with as few of them as he could except from the bare essentials where he would have to submit himself to it.

Communication from the ministry and Dumbledore was going to be few and far-between. He was cut-off from the owling network but he supposed he could pop a envelope or two into the post every month. He'd prefer them to be at length but any massive updates he had been advised to neglect and store away in the bound books with parchment pages that filled half this suitcase. He could very well see it turning into a diary which felt senseless when there were people who were in dire need of putting experience to paper out there first-hand. He was not one of them.  
He left his room in the early hours of the morning. The absence of conversation hadn't gone unnoticed and he rather missed James mincing around with egg in his hair and Lily holding him still to get it out while he watched over a newspaper. He was wearing the uniform. So far it had not reduced any jeopardisation of self-identity or a desire to rip it off just yet.

He had been told six am was the earliest he could be up and about and it being his first day it didn't do to ignore the rules too fast too soon before he had even begun however wandering silently about at five fifty five gave him certain shivers of pleasure and good spirits to last him into the ordeal. Book and pen in pocket he pushed open the wooden doors to the front that lead round into the back garden. He was stunned to see light green grass and patios and the chirp of birds. He'd expected grey skies. He opened the side door and entered the back garden. Save a few scuff-marks and trampled flowers and foot-prints and stench of moulding vegetables in the bin there was nothing extraordinary about the scene if not for context and it disturbed him within.  
It was not much different to the Weasley's set-up. He didn't approve of the comparison but his mind had taken him there without thought.. He made a mental note to sit down with Arthur and Molly and apologise profusely. Dandelion seeds swept by the breeze floated over the hedges and he could see a hint of black smoke hurtling up like a beanstalk from an obscure muggle fairytale.

His throat swelled and he felt dizzy using the gate to hold himself up. He had been victim to much stigma and prejudice but it felt unfair in his mind that his had not ended with him inside barbed fence. He moved one foot in front of the other as if paralysed from the waist upwards and he was just learning how to walk for the first time. His hand wobbled near his ribcage where he felt wounded.

He kept walking through. He brushed the shrubs with German-manufactured boots stopping to dirty them as half-frenzied attempt for justice to be served and entering the field that lay beyond narrowly avoiding nettles and now gradually poorly-kept grass grounded down. No bit seemed as if it had not been stood on and scraped clean of life and growth. His eyes were bright and despairing as he looked forward over at the dull mechanical camp that nazley puffed out streams of ash and smoke.

Remus dropped to his knees making sure he was out of sight. His bones hung to his heart as he came tumbling down. He wanted the ash to cover his face. He wanted to inhale the fumes and to feel how it felt to breath it in such amounts that it would make his heart shudder. He shakily set up protection spells pushing himself to stand and weaved them, disorientated as he walked. He removed all motion and it laid as straight as his leg as he moved ever closer to the camp. Remus knew all that went on despite the lack of written word on such things. Word of mouth, and the emptiness of hate he was familiar with mere moments after he had been stripped away by Greyback. He knew it all by his very own experiences and how such things could be amplified at grand scale.  
He saw people of all sorts. Confined for being the same, but so marginally diverse. He felt that it was incredulous how a man bent, crooked, marvellous green-eyes..a woman permed hair, freckles, a little girl missing her front two teeth and one shoulder slightly shorter than the other if you had the means to look hard enough could all be condemned when their beauty had no bounds.

Most, the lucky some it seemed, were dressed in blue and white costumes. The word costume entered his mind because they did not accommodate the shape of any of them. He owned pyjamas like that that his mother had given him and a nostalgic theme of nightwear he continued to buy to this day when he had all worn them out. He was ill that in a drawer in his flat they were and how it was a mocking normality a choice was to put them on. He numbly acknowledged the clangs and cries of a world that was not dignified and does not have a conscience or half perceptive brain to rub together.

Remus unearthing from the mental chants of his mind had seemed to lock eyes with a boy on the other side. Young, unruly, eyes. That looked as if they'd cause quite the trouble back at home where he came from. The boy had noticed him looking and he was making quite a spectacle of it too, not being subtle at all to where he was. His expression darkened and Remus gained the rising suspicion that this black haired child was sussing and interrogating him. Of all things. He scolded his indecent imagination. He did not look as afraid as the other children, and that is what fascinated Remus the most. Now he didn't believe the fear wasn't there. But he hoped that it was buried enough so that at least it would be one out of the few children in the same situation that made him hopeful until the end. The end, he pondered, the end he couldn't bear to think about.

The boy was still looking at him and was inching closer conspicuously and innocently walking in loops. He sneezed and shrugged and wiped it on his trousers and Remus watched on tirelessly, pitilessly open-mouthed at the force of nature that was ever closer. The boy stood next to the barbed wire. Remus suddenly feel himself tense. If anybody would grab onto it, it would be that boy. Slightly feminine in posture and rough around the edges. Remus looked to where the boy was now staring with clenched teeth and it was two women Remus supposed to be family who were currently being beaten down for refusing to push wheelbarrows containing something Remus had rather he had not been subject to seeing in between rags and stones.  
The boy had a demour similar to James and Remus found comfort in the characteristics he exhibited. Remus couldn't tell what age he was and for some reason that would haunt and hound him late at night is why when he looked at him he knew internally they were meant to be the same age almost as if he had stopped at eleven but should be at Remus' own point of life. The boy was oblivious to Remus' apparent unwinding of mentality stared on. His eyes were hard and remarkably unforgiving for someone so young but for some reason Remus knew without doubt there was concrete reason even in these circumstances. "Your wand. Pretty good model." Remus was so taken aback by the voice that he straightened. "Wand...?" he spoke. "Whatever could you...oh. I see. I..I wasn't expecting that."

A warm, mildly arrogant laugh which Remus could feel was watered down followed. "Mine's slightly longer. More lightweight." Remus, confused and struck that these words were that of an eleven year old pulled a reply out of thin air. "And you have this wand on your person?"  
The boy nodded, not entirely obligated to the conversation. Remus took this time to take note if he had injuries but all that he seemed to find were either self-inflicted or healed but of course he had no idea if they differed under his shirt. He wondered quite worriedly how the old wounds had come about. Although they were old, they were not ancient. It frustrated him that this boy's horror hadn't started with the war. Remus attempted to think of the next route for the conversation. "I'd keep it very concealed. And I trust you are familiar with how you may use it to escape?"The boy looked offended and just scoffed. Remus tried again. "Very well then. Good..." he felt blood rush to his fingers again. "Good." It was good. However his nerves could not take that he still remained on the wrong side.  
The boy looked at him curiously in that moment and he moved his hand like flicking away a cigarette. Remus blinked. Had he imagined it? The boy continued to look and a light seemed to turn on in his irises and his smile quirked slightly. He looked mysteriously smug as he leaned in. "All good marauders have a plan." Remus almost spluttered.

The coincidence he couldn't take in all at once. Remus chose his next words soundlessly. His voice came out like a croak. He felt the compulsion to rest his hand on the boy's shoulder but he was restricted from the luxury. "I've heard that marauders never not have a good plan. I've met many myself."  
and he was gone.

Remus felt the loss like someone had reached for him and squeezed his heart into dust into as many grains as the ash that he breathed into his lungs. He felt the warmth where the boy had been but the rest of him felt like it was being plunged into ice cold water and tears that knew more than he did trickled with it.  
That night it was good to be rid of the uniform and return to modest cotton again. It felt weightless and like he was being held in some other's arms than his own. He had spent so long down at the outskirts of the camp that he had forgotten he had been wearing it at all. It bothered him to know this now and to have been so oblivious at the time. The boy who he still did not know the name of had seen him in it. He wondered if the good and kind adult impression he had thought he had given off was modified by the contradicting enemy image he wore. Surely the child would not have come to him if he suspected that Remus was a soldier. He was far more intelligent. Remus' face certainly gave away any doubt the boy would yet have had and his painfully English responses were more than enough. Remus hoped if that being the case he would have put on a very good show and entertainment to him in the face of what he was going through.  
Remus stood shakily to wash his face in the basin from where he had muddied himself and seemingly been in so much stress his nails had pierced his skin. He was glad that he could take away some harm he felt he should be at the forefront of in the camp even if it was not done to him. It would take some explaining if anyone questioned him on it but he was relying on that issue not to press him. Since his arrival back into his room he had filled endless pages with the days worth of his discoveries. At the rate he was going he expected it could not be long until he used it all up but for now he relished the opportunity to use his emotions for purpose. It was one, if not the only thing he was good for.

Remus slept like he was in the hospital wing on a full moon. The boy wandered around his mind and how distinctly he seemed to know him into the early hours of the morning. He didn't know what his name was but somehow he knows it rolls off the tongue. He didn't know his favourite things to do but he knew the earth moved and quivered beneath him. There was much that Remus knew. It was a sinking notion that it was probable he would never discover whether he was right or wrong, or why he even had a right to. He did not know him. He did not deserve to but he felt that they were part of the same cage. It was then, a full demonstration of the madness within, that he decided to not only save him but to save every person in that camp. He knew that when he decided to, this that is all he ever had in mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Remus had found it easy the second time around to venture out to the enclosure. He was still a newcomer as far as newcomers go and apart from the briefs he sat in on there was no threat coming his way. Not in his thorough radar, at least. There was much for him to investigation but only so little slots he could make his way there. It was rather ridiculous how slow it all would have to be, and how urgent his need was.

He did not know if he would see the boy again. What he did now was if he did his fair share of walking around aimlessly, his gaze dipped the boy would find him. It hadn't taken long. Remus watched him approach and he sat like he was preparing for a picnic. The boy looked as persecuted as he was violated. Of course he could not sit and Remus felt like a fool reminding him. Remus reached behind him for the picnic basket and released cheese and jam sandwiches.  
The boy opaque and looking away faced the sharp light of the day. His eyes were narrowed. He was looking out for himself. Remus understood it, and he moved to sit on his knees opening up his body language to correspond to the young boys psychosis. To look safe, even if Remus didn't feel it. Even if he never had. There wasn't a bone in that boy's body that cared.

Remus' eyes watched with him as guards were disparte, squinting slightly. The sun didn't make him feel well. "It would be very useful to me and many wizards that I know how it is you came to be here to this point where you and me have come together to join this jolly mutual awkwardness. You're young and you have an excuse. Me, however, am not allowed to be excused for it-" the boy shoved his dirty hands deeper into his pockets and chewed on air.  
The boy's voice was a hiss. "I'm Sirius if that's what you're asking."  
"That's a start, Sirius."  
Sirius looked as if he wanted to mimic him but it was longer a time or place where he needed to. He shuffled again, his hand flicking like a nervous tic. "This is like being inspected by a ruddy school nurse." Remus felt inclined to jump on the information and ask him where but he felt expected to listen and to listen was his element which he could spend all day if he had the freedom.  
"Listen," Sirius began and faltered and started again. "I don't know what you want. I don't listen. That's what my parents say."  
"Remus moved as if to touch his shoulder. "Sirius."

Sirius buckled. He wasn't used to his name much anymore. Remus thought that it was probably a long time he heard at home, too. "And your parents - are they here?" he closed his eyes slowly for his unwindiling talent for tact. It was also true that he was not talking to a boy who would repel his meaning from the horrors he has likely to have seen and not to hold it against him."You're old enough to know by that I mean have they been unaccounted for?"  
Remus noticed that he had simply softened his terms. He was not trained to talk to people as a species let alone a child. Sirius did not seem like a child as he swore and spat on the ground. "They're alive. Would like to be up there in the house watching everyone die, if they could."  
"I am not sure there is anybody in your position who wouldn't like to be."

"No," Sirius snapped. "They're just as bad. Worse. It's a wonder we're even here."  
These were adult words and they moved Remus in a sickening way to be subject to their host who until this point probably preferred to talk about whizbees and not hatred that he felt from Sirius in waves. He deserved to hate. It was the least anyone could give him.  
Sirius bitterly picked up where he left off. "I deserve it because I am a Black. The reason we are here is because Muggles are getting rid of pure-blooded kind so there is no one on top of them in the food chain. For once everyone else is left alone. It's just as well. No more breeding." he coughed a mucus-y cough that worried Remus and he wiped his nose will his sleeve and shook it looking as if he was looking to shake off more than that. "I read a Muggle book once. About Karma. Have you heard of it?"  
Remus was surprised by his duty to confirm what Sirius already knew. He was a pawn in the scheme of things. To confirm was about all he could do. "Karma that does not stretch to a young boy."  
"Oh, but I still have their blood!"  
"And I am still a werewolf. Does that make me the werewolf that did that to me? No. It does not and it never will no matter how close I may get in my lifetime"  
Sirius'' eyes were wide but remained sad. Not even a glimmer of impression or childish excitement unearthed. Only the need to protect what had been done. "That is not your fault either. Don't even for a second think it."  
"But-"  
"Sirius."  
"You're a-"  
"Sirius." Sirius stopped.  
"When you first came here I thought you escaped but you were messed up in the brain and that means you were sticking around. You looked exhausted but now I know why."

Remus couldn't say he wasn't amused to have spent so long dwelling on being mistaken for a Nazi officer when Sirius clearly had different, and frankly more deductive reasoning to what he could be more than he did about himself to reflect on. Remus' mind switched to a more serious tone. "What is stopping me from assuming that your brain is messed up as you call it? The first time that we met we established that you can leave and you can exist the premises? if it is assurance that you'll make it, you have me now..."  
Sirius barked with a contained laugh and gestured for the sandwich for the first time. Clearly he couldn't keep a lid on his hunger and Remus would remember that. "I can't."

Remus waited for a backed-up description why. Sirius bit into the bread hungrily and chucked the crusts when he was finished. Remus watched in dismay that he could let it go. Sirius needed all of the food he could get. Preferences were meant to go out of the window. Sirius was not that kind of boy and it filled him with motherly rage and awe that he regained standards and held onto them with all of his might.  
Sirius saw. "What? have you seen my hair? I don't need it any more curly than it is."  
Remus gaped some more.

"Seriously I have heard stuff you know! I haven't just been trapped in a basement all of my life." he chuckled cheerily his eyes dark and expressionless. Remus would have liked to correct him on any other day that wasn't true but it seemed to give Sirius a boost that such things could happen. "As I was saying I can't leave 'cos mum's only gone and got herself a little hatchling. She gave birth to it a few days before you came. It was a mess. That kids alright for making her pant and scream like that..." he put the humour aside and he looked at Remus in a direct manner. "He's innocent and I can't leave him."  
Remus digested Sirius' lavished words. "And it's connected to her like a freaking arm so I couldn't run off with him even if I tried. I wouldn't get far." he alliterated. His eyes watered and he covered his temples with small hands. Remus understood the morale and love which Sirius expressed. He didn't have an answer and Sirius knew it and Sirius saw that as an achievement as well. Remus melted his gaze into Sirius in a 'Don't you dare accept that there is nothing you and I can't do.' Sirius puffed in disbelief. Remus kept his empathy on him. "Sirius Black I am warning you." Sirius spluttered and laughed like Remus intended. He quoted Sirius' own words to use against him."Sirius Black I hear stuff, you know."  
"Reverse pyscology!"  
"Big words. I'm intrigued where you heard that."  
Sirius smirked. Remus could tell it was time for him to leave even if he could not bring himself to do so. He lifted himself up. "Story for another time, though, I'm afraid. I hope you ate enough of that sandwich to last."  
Sirius cut in, suddenly more vulnerable than Remus had ever seen him. "You solemnly swear?"  
Remus' world slowed and he felt his throat close up in the astonished stillness of the trees around them alive to tell the tale. "I do." he rose his finger. "And not only that I want you to solemnly swear that you will consider leaving every day so I can sleep at night."  
Sirius nodded. "I swear, Remus."  
He hadn't told Sirius his name.


	3. Chapter 3

James had sent a package and a letter in the post.  
_There are photos here from Mrs Potter and I. Unfortunately, they're of me! Better luck next time! Lacking a bit of the movey-hovey magicy-wagicy (That's subtle enough, right? right?!) so they're dull as well as disappointing but you'll probably like them anyway because you're like that._  
_P.S Please, please mind yourself and all that. Me and Evans are busting arteries every day over this and it's not fun you selfish prick._  
and a letter from Peter.  
_Hullo Remus. _  
_Can I say that? I dunno. I just want you to know I'm living with James and Lily now. I hope Germany is okay. I don't know how anything can be good most days. I wonder, do they bomb over there? I sure hope not. Anyway, hope all is well. _  
_Wormtail_

It was a pleasant surprise and it was a moment for sentimental purposes to hear from them but he had much more to be getting on with. He didn't count himself full of time to spare from where it belonged. The previous night was the night he first heard the cremating machines. They had churned and they had kept him awake. He feared for the effect it would have on Sirius.

It was not easy for Remus to be something of a werewolf with high scent sensitivity. It meant that he was trouble by the smell of bodies that were burned lingered in his nostrils. Not that he didn't doubt that it was something that ever went away, considering the Nazis placed on the site did not seem to mind. They rather enjoyed it. It was probably like a celebration.

The cooks downstairs, Remus could see, were not as thick-skinned because heard often heard vomiting in the dead of night. The sounds of vomiting was something he was used to and it was in his bones to find the source and comfort it as he did when James had a little too much to drink, or years after when Lily was suffering morning sickness.

As much as he couldn't offer his support, he always made a detour into the kitchen when the door was open. Smiled with a sickened recognition that could comfort them that they were not alone and it was not just a case of gender, picked up a carrot poking out from the bin. He did that because he did not like to see food go to waste and it was not above him to eat only-just gone-off food when the rest of the site chucked everything away left, right and centre or fed it to the pigs rather than starving children that were more well-off than everybody else in range.

Today was his regular visit to Sirius. The boy hadn't made a decision to leave and it was making Remus hostile. He was not aware how long Sirius had spent between the barbed wire and it would be something he would ask today. Germans did not wait around. Not these kind, and he was fairly certain Sirius would be aware of the implications.

Remus walked a different way to the front door, round the back gate manoeuvre. Instead he made his way through the trees and the forest as was likely to be the place where he would go during the full moon. He had checked it out before but it was necessary to have a deeper look. It was coming up, and whereas he had left the last time to an empty cottage miles from the site he couldn't push it and he would have to use the resources around him.  
Remus worried for Sirius for when he went under. He knew what Remus was and it was another addiction of evil creatures that already surrounded him.

Remus picked up stones. He wasn't sure why he was doing so. He supposed he was trying war-spirited DIY to form a game of gobstones but he quickly let them go. Sirius was not a boy, and it was a joke that Remus was pondering entertaining him. He needed to get him out but Sirius was stubborn, and they would do it his way. However Remus was rather stubborn himself and he wouldn't go down without a good fight.

Out of the forest, it was proving tricky to find Sirius. When Remus found him he was subject to only two eyes watching him through a gap in wood but it was secluded. Exactly as Remus had advised him. He smiled because although Sirius had complied in knowledge that Remus' criteria was a good one he had made it intentionally a challenge for Remus to find.  
Remus' voice was coated with an impressed 'I know what you did but we're not going to discuss it' glow. "This is a very good spot. I applaud you."  
Sirius guffawed. Remus knew this meant "Where is the food?"  
"I was unable to find you anything today. When I do, maybe you should take it upon yourself to share it around. As fond as I am of you I hope I can do a difference that reaches at less another person."  
Remus looked at Sirius. It was the wrong thing to say because his bones were raged against his skin and he did not think he fed him nearly as well as enough as he would want.  
Sirius nodded deciding to go for the orange peel perhaps a few weeks old and suck it between his tongue and teeth for substance. Remus' stomach hurt with worry. "I feed Regulus. Everyone else is this place can either go to hell or are doing just fine. I saw a boy crying in the pain with hunger so I gave him something. If I see someone who needs it, I do."  
Remus nodded and he started his usual ritual of medically checking Sirius. He could see little this time so he could not perform a full inspection. That didn't stop him from using a couple of charms to rid him of any disease or infection. "You are a brave man and you are a kind one."  
"I'm not going to live to be a man." Remus shuddered at the acceptance that escaped from Sirius lips and he regarded the cuts and oh, of course. Bruises. What had he been doing? He didn't ask because Sirius was entitled to as much secrecy as he did but he resented Sirius for sitting in a place which meant he couldn't get to him. That was a functional choice too made by the infamous oppressor in front of him who would not accept help that was not his own and who only allowed Remus to give him medical attention if it was from a wand that he couldn't stop.

Sirius looked at Remus who was sporting a restrained frown. "Are you going to live?"  
Remus knew that Sirius meant the approaching full moon. He was constantly exasperated by the boy's consistent eye for detail. He was hoping maybe he'd forgotten that small fact about himself. His voice was reassuring. "I am an old man. I have made it every moon and cycle there has been. There is nothing for you to worry about."  
Sirius looked away to his pocket where Remus knew his wand was. Sirius with every visit gazed at it more than the previous one. "Moony."  
Remus felt sick. Every coincidence that lay with Sirius lay with his action to forget and dismiss. It reminded him of something very important and he couldn't handle what it possibly meant for Sirius to know personal names that he had. It did not make sense, but what part of Sirius Black did? He attempted not to panic and he answered with a "Yes?"

A signature of being proven right dawned on Sirius' face. Remus regarded Sirius looked frightened. He did not know where the knowledge came from but he was much stronger at coping with it than Remus was. Sirius had already moved on and touched the sole of his bare feet with his filthy hands. "I don't know how I know that," Sirius sounded like he was tasting the word and trying to process what he meant to make the sounds. "...Moony but I don't want you to die, OK? I just know that I want you to live more than I want to stay or get out of here.." he looked complacent. He coughed and looked back to Remus for the first time with watery eyes.  
Remus reminded himself how young Sirius truly was. He wanted to talk to him as if he was a grown man but he felt that he would speak to him what he was about to say in same way if he was. He knew it in his skin, and he gave Sirius a bookish kind of look. "If you were an animal, just for tonight to protect yourself in case anything happened to me so I couldn't, what would you be?"

Remus expected Sirius to roll his eyes. He didn't, and Remus found himself hanging onto the cogs that turned in Sirius brain through the windows of grey pools. Remus expected it to be a wizarding animal; something sleuth and self-providing. Protective, but lone. Perhaps with beating wings. When he had asked questions of this sort to Sirius before such as the time he gave him history on the Hogwarts houses for he only knew about one which one he would like to be placed in Sirius had nearly knocked him out when he asked about Slytherin.  
Sirius' mouth moved as he thought but it didn't take as long as what was normal for a young boy when faced with a choice of an animal form simply said. "A dog."

Remus couldn't find any signs of disappointment in Sirius' words, only a force of pride and a dog-like grin to accompany and live up to the name. Remus couldn't unsee features of a dog in Sirius' behaviour. Sirius spoke so Remus couldn't. "And I wouldn't be a dog to protect myself. I'd be a dog so I can protect you."-"And Regulus."  
Remus smiled. "A very good choice."  
"I don't need approval."  
"And don't I know it." Remus replied.


	4. Chapter 4

The full-moon went as well as it could considering where he was. Remus had to resort to a nuzzle, a suggestion of Dumbledore's to suppress the howls that were likely to come out of it. He hadn't caused any unwanted attention. The wolf had been quite restrained overall especially considering the livestock a few miles down. He had wondered if there were any werewolves locked in the camp and he had been informed, in fact, there were. But they were not put with the others. They were steel crate confined and the wolf, he felt, had sensed it. How could it not?  
Remus was not less inclined to the welfare of them but he was grateful that they had some sort of purpose to be kept alive. He did not like to think of the consequences. He was also grateful that it wasn't noticed that he had been missing and thus nobody had come to look for him. Therefore it was a shock when a day later he was approached by one of the men he had seen in the camp and loitering after the poor women who were subject to him. He had done some grotesque things.

Remus was raw from the after-effects of a particularly potent moon and he had to be quite careful how he carried himself. He felt very naked as the man had found a new way to entertain himself by scrutinising Remus as he limped by as normally as he could. The very least he could be accused is sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. He did not know what the man thought, but he had a bone-chilling feeling that he had become something to intimidate and torment. but he wouldn't worry about it now. He wasn't scared of a tiny man with tiny intelligence and he found comfort in being more powerful than he was given credit for even if it was not in his ethics to do so.

Lily had sent him a blanket. Remus had half a mind to take it to Sirius but a blanket could not go unnoticed. It hurt him, but he could not put him in jeopardy. Not with the regular checks they made on the captives his age. It was almost as if they were the most capable of escape when they hardly knew why or how they were there. But with Sirius, they were right to. He picked as many fights as he could get away with. Remus wasn't happy about it. However, there was nothing he could do to contain him. It was one of Sirius' charms: his integrity.  
Remus thought about what it would be like if Sirius could transform into a dog. His dreams were always colourful when Sirius was a dog and he had even gone as far to imagine walking him out and never coming back. Sirius would live with them. James and Lily. They would get along well and his spirit would make him a prodigy to James.

Remus had thought if Sirius was a dog and it was remotely possible to leave with him how it would lessen the blow of leaving his sibling behind to have Harry. Harry liked dogs. Remus remembered what he could remember of Harry.  
These dreams made it very hard to live in reality. There had been two exterminations in one week. He didn't know and couldn't guess who were the priority to enter the showers as much as he would have liked to have been able to guess. Muggles or Purebloods. Maybe there was no longer a hierarchy. The first time, and it was behind bars, restricted from the world as a whole. His books had gotten bigger. There was now a substantial amount of observations to leave the walls down the line, on a postman's bike for an owl or two to dive in and take them as if they were never even there.

Remus did not know what Dumbledore or the ministry planned to do with the information. He took every opportunity to implore them to put a stop to what was happening but Dumbledore had often told him "There is no distinguishing a horcrux without informing who it belongs to." and he had been right but Remus had his own wisdom which he had been inclined to share. "Clipping a hippogriff's wing when it has hurt it is a kindness even though that hippogriff is dying. A wing is as important."

Remus walked down the landscape towards Sirius. Sirius could jump on the hippogriff's back and he could fly it if he wanted. He could escape within inches of his life and he would be a light in a tragedy and Remus was going to be more forceful about it.  
Sirius watched him arrive. He looked glad to see Remus in one piece and he seemed to slack in relief. His heart that had been thudding with the terror of youth slowed as he joined him. Remus sat. "I wonder if you know that you could make me breathe like that if you did the sensible thing and left this place." Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably. He thought he was in control of the argument. He didn't answer and he looked away angrily in defiance.

Remus wanted to beg. Rather, his body language did,. It ran away without him. Sirius didn't need an adult to fall apart in front of him. Oddly, Sirius looked like he wanted to comfort Remus. In fact, it seemed like he needed it and his small body hummed restlessly and he bit his nails.  
Remus unleashed when he had brought to show Sirius. In his possession he had a photography of a photo of himself, James, Lily and Peter. Sirius had asked and he had been all to obliged to match faces to the names. Remus put it down to Sirius wanting to have concrete images for goodness of the world because he believed that there was none and he needed proof. Sirius knew what it was. He motioned for it and Remus gave it to him. Sirius looked at it. In the photography they were stood in a row. An uneven one because of Peter's height but a row nonetheless. Remus had orchestrated order for the photo but it wasn't consistent. It was like trying to control a box full of marbles and he could see that Sirius understand that in his own way as he looked from right to left taking them all in.

Sirius focused on Remus in the photo. It was at the point where he had lost it and his smile was effortless and defeated by James stoic and ridiculous place in the photography and broad grin encompassing them all. Sirius looked at James. He seemed to drink him in. It was almost adoration. Impossible for someone who didn't know him but Sirius looked like he was in on a secret that James had just told and they seemed to smile together.  
Remus watched. He could feel his heart fine-tuning to the fluid smile that Sirius wore and the brightness of his eyes that were so strong in a gaze he expected to ignite it. It was not normal to feel so at home sharing ground of a field that blood had spilled on but he felt it. He felt at home with Sirius who was piecing together all of the attributes all of the people in the photograph shared. "You wear cardigans when you're not here." he spoke with all seriousness."I do."

"They fit you better."  
"Thank you."  
"And James?"  
"No. He's more vest."  
"Is that his girlfriend?"  
"His wife."  
"No?" Sirius exclaimed in disbelief.  
"Oh yes."  
"Who would think it?"  
Who indeed, Remus thought, who indeed.

Remus had let Sirius keep the photograph. He had formed a bond with it and as much as Remus needed it, Sirius was in more need of it than he was. He had left him. Curled up in a ball. Remus had never seen him sleep although his words did sometimes make Sirius want to. He had left, and he prayed to Merlin that nobody would find the photograph on his person. Then again, it would be very hard to find it if Sirius had anything to do with it.  
He returned half a fortnight later. Remus' pockets were piled high with sweetened goods. If he knew anything about children he knew that their sweet tooth had to be adequately brushed.

Remus found Sirius clinging to the barbed wire. It was a miracle Remus had never been seen yet, and merciful that he had managed it once again. It was a task for Remus to see through the black smoke that billowed from the tubes to the north-east. Remus had to wait for Sirius to outsmart the eyes that were watching him. He was aware of them all even if he could not seem every single one directly.  
Remus' heart rippled, always wary, always weary for worst outcome. That Sirius would not reach him safely. He held a ball of clay and rolled it with quivering fingers. Now he could see Sirius. Sirius was missing a finger. Nausea rained over Remus and he found it very difficult not to drop. Sirius looked barbarous as he ever was and it occurred to him that Remus hadn't even stopped to cry.

Sirius saw him looking and how it had made him mute and a flash of denial passed through Sirius' irises. He pointed his chin bravely. "I'm OK, Moony. I was being a little too out of line with them. They had enough."  
Remus listened but he was too far gone. He grabbed Sirius arm despite the barbed wire cutting his hand and he yanked Sirius close to him. "You are going to leave. Today. Now." with every word he felt his body sob and the need to pass out.  
"Moony-"  
"Stop."  
"You're hurting me."  
"GET OUT OF THERE."  
Sirius stepped back and he let Remus slide to the ground like a broken rag-doll and he let his fist fall against the earth. "Sirius, you can't be there anymore. This isn't a game. They will kill you."  
"I'd like to see them-"  
Remus unhinged. "Padfoot."  
They both stiffened. Remus had never used that name before and it was his turn to be a stranger to his own body. What was even more disconcerting was that Sirius seemed to recognise it. Was he losing his memory?

They stood in silence and Remus made the exchange with the sweets that Sirius took with a ravenous vigour. They both looked apologetic. Sirius even more so because his age was designed for it. Remus asked several times to be permitted to look at his hand but Sirius wouldn't allow it. He had simply told him that it had saved someone from the same fate. Remus couldn't think why. Sirius had told him that it hurt but what was left had lost feeling but he doesn't know if he has only blotted it out.

Sirius looked at it a lot. Remus assumed that it was fascinating for a young boy and exhilarating to lose something and to find yourself untarnished by it. Anybody would. It was the person that it had happened to was the problem. It was a punishment saved for people who trait and Sirius had never done a thing to betray anyone. He was a boy. However he felt like a hypocrite for being able to resent the same boy because he would not leave when he could so easily. Was it the same? perhaps it was.

Remus always believed that life was always on top and there was nothing better than to live. Was forcing Sirius to live because he was a young boy such a supported decision as he once thought? There was no differing from it. It was true. There is nothing he opposed more than death.  
Remus swapped Sirius' photograph he had kept for a more recent one but he didn't look to see the new person that had formed next to him.


	5. Chapter 5

Remus wished he had access to a library or at least a mentally-expanding spell that could help him recall the Black family line. The problem with living in a muggle-orientated village was that he grew up without basic information. Sure, he went to a school with a fair few of them. He knew that they were a large group and he knew that they went back for centuries but mostly everything else was provided to him by James' opinion.

Remus did not know what knowing about Sirius' family could possibly tell him but the only thought ever in his mind was to get to the bottom of why he and Sirius were the way they were. Every time he clung onto a thought his mind became quite hazy and blurred as if it was a part of him that he was not supposed to enter.

Remus could not come to any rational conclusion. All that was available was speculation and he didn't want to wander down that route. There was the option of sending Albus a private letter. It would be the best thing to do especially if he wanted answers. Remus wanted answers and there was no one who could know the circumstances, or attempt to make sense of it unlike Albus but Remus was hesitant to let it out of his hands.

Remus was always suspicious of his mail and it being intercepted. Clearly, it hadn't. Otherwise he would have been confronted, and detained by now purely by insanity. When you are in the centre of a war, one must accept the tendency that you will become paranoid at least once or twice. And in Remus' case it was all of the time. Or perhaps he was just being careful. However the adjective 'careful' was taking a different meaning these days.  
Remus felt a sense of claustrophobia. It was as if he was being closed in on. The halls were so frequently absent that Remus began to despise it to curb his worry.  
On top of that he was never called on to describe his progress and supposed work but Remus kept up appearances to make his lies authentic. He would spend long periods in his room, up to three times a day as if writing and he would come out and look over what would be his next point of interest. Regularly that scared the youngest soldiers into getting up and leaving the room whenever he entered which suited him quite pleasantly.

Sometimes, he took to the garden and noted plants by name to remind him of his mother's, estimating how long it would take them to stay pristine when everything around them was everything but.  
Remus watched the house's children sometimes. They devoured the swing and the ropes that attached it. He liked that. If no other child could, he was glad these children were having a good time. He didn't like to dwell on it but the children used the swing to see over the hedges into the camp.

It was time to see Sirius again. Remus had a few questions bobbing around him. He couldn't possibly ask Sirius these things, but could he? If it meant coming closer to the paradox that he put forward? Albus had replied disturbingly quickly. Albus never did that. He installed the value of patience and learning to get by without his input and generally Remus appreciated the lesson. However, he noticed that he would get a lot more done if Albus was consistently prompt like this. Remus felt the sandpaper groves in the envelope and he pressed his thumb into it to get a feel into what he was opening.  
Remus slid the letter out considerately. He handled it and lowered his gaze to read the first line. His mouth was drier than he had hoped it would be when he received the information.

_Remus, before I begin I'd like to remind you of the dangers of association of somebody who belongs to a place where his days are numbered but, no doubt, I believe that you are already aware and my words are of no profit. The boy you described, Master Sirius Black, is an anomaly to which I have no formal answer. However I know that you have to come to trust my assumptions. And my assumption is that this boy is part of an alternate timeline which perhaps, if I may say, is more powerful than this one. Perhaps one, fate has decided, is the one that must be reality this it has leaked into this continuum shown through your innermost connections._

Or that is what Albus was going to write. Instead, for the benefit of Remus' stability, he wrote only a line.

_What are your assumptions?_

Remus held on to the letter, Remus had never been asked this before in a letter. He felt abandoned to the contamination of reality by his thoughts that told him, instinctively in isolation, that Sirius could be fabricated. Was Sirius a delusion, or was he real? Remus was conscious of where his mind wanted to take him. He knew that it was attempting to convert the impossible into something that was possible; perhaps he had slipped up mentally.  
Remus knew that Sirius was very real. He had never met somebody quite as real. It was egotistical to assume that he could even make up somebody like him. He didn't have the creativity for it.

What were his assumptions? he began to stand. There was one assumption that had ever crossed his mind. And that was that he loved Sirius in a way that could not be applied to the short time he had known him. He knew that the love was born before he had ever entered the gates. Remus didn't know how it could be, but he couldn't criticise or devalue it just because he did not know the origin.  
Remus made a start to the back gate door. He would be late and Sirius was not the type to take well to being kept waiting which would lead to multiple problems in their relationship that Remus could not afford. Remus was stopped by the man that was prone to make Remus' job very hard.

"Excuse me." Remus spoke in the polite tone he used most frequently in the company of another person. He didn't want a confrontation. Especially from this man. He felt drilled and up to his knees in what he could manage.  
"I've seen you sneak out the back so many times I thoughts-"  
"Sneak is the incorrect word. Research is the better lexical choice. Now, excuse me."  
"Shut up, ya pansy. Don't move, or I'll let everyone know that you like it out the back. Let me finish. I will be a sphinx, give you a riddle...either that, or we can go together, make sure you're not doing anything that would interest the heads."  
Remus closed his eyes and he felt his chest seize with a pressing need to make it to Sirius. It was no longer viable that he could get there even without this berk who would be hot on his heels regardless, undoubtedly. Remus wanted to get away to his room, away from him but he needed a safe diversion. A diversion which suggested that he had nothing to hide from him. A diversion where he would have to be tactical. "How about we step back inside."

"I knew you liked women." Remus was slapped on the back which made him hit his thinning haired head on the door frame. The german soldier, clearly obsessed with sexuality although Remus had given him no reason to believe that he was one or the other knew that he was one out of many to be subject to it, went for the wine cabinet. His endurance was about to be tested for how long he could stay in the same room. It would be a very long evening.


End file.
